


a day that ends in y

by deniigiq



Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guide Dogs, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pets, Service Dogs, Team Dynamics, Team Red, Trauma, building relationships, some references to matt's not so good mental health as a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:36:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “Take the fucking dog,” he told them.“Mr. Murdock, you’ve had a very difficult life,” they told him, “And there is no shame in using support when you need it.”“I know. I have a fucking stick,” he told them. “So take the goddamn dog before I poison it.”(Matt gets a guide dog and struggles to cope with it, but not in the way he expects to.)





	a day that ends in y

**Author's Note:**

> wasn't going to post this one but an anon on tumblr gave me some much needed encouragement to do it. thanks boo, you know who you are. 
> 
> Some references to animal abuse (not followed through, for real I swear) and past childhood abuse, past suicidal behavior, and Matt's ongoing struggle with self worth. Please do what you need to to keep yourselves safe.

Her name was Paisley and Matt was doing his not to hate her because it wasn’t her fault that they were where they were.

It was Mr. Kline from fucking church’s, with his entitled, holier than thou nose in the air and if Matt was being honest, it wasn’t even him, technically. It was the even more entitled, even holier than thou Mrs. Kline.

And okay, maybe it was a teensy bit his own fault, but really there was absolutely no need to call the police.

He hadn’t been jumping _off_ the roof, he’d been jumping _on_ to the roof. But it wasn’t like he could just come out and say that to the officers trying to talk him off the ledge he had very happily perched himself on.

He probably should have changed his clothes.

Scratch that, he _definitely_ should have changed his clothes.

But sometimes you just gotta evacuate church and all the sins you’ve been stewing in for the last year or so for some air, alright? And sometimes you just gotta do that shit as soon as possible because a second more in the presence of the Lord and you were sure you were gonna erupt into flames right then and there.

But that’s besides the point. The point is Paisley.

The point is fucking Mrs. Kline who called the fucking police who talked to him like a child for half an hour before grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and manhandling him off the roof and right into a 5150 hold in his damn church clothes. They didn’t let him call anyone and ignored his very rational arguments about how he was definitely not suicidal.

That all went to hell anyways when the hospital opened his medical file and whoops, hi fifteen-year-old Matty, hey do me a favor and go get fucked, would ya?

Ugh.

Hindsight is 20-20, even for a blind guy.

Ugh.

Even Fogs couldn’t do too much to help him when this came to light and Matt didn’t need to see Foggy’s horrified face upon learning this information to know how heartbroken he was. Matt hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told anybody since, really. Sister Maggie knew, Father Lantom knew, half his orphanage pals had known. Matt had just been a fucked up kid, it was part of a long line of fucked up things he’d done.

But that was then, and this is now, and he was a grown-ass man who’d only maybe attempted suicide like once this whole year and it was totally under duress, he’d gotten through it, it was fine.

The state psychologist asked him if he’d attempted anything since he was fifteen and he lied with this in mind like a professional.

And yet, somehow, she caught him dead and that was just embarrassing to everyone involved and _anyways_.

Now he had a fucking dog.

She was allegedly a very good girl. Matt’s new social workers told her that she was a very good girl. A very smart girl. What a good girl.

Lies.

She jumped on him and leaned on him and put her cold-ass nose in his lap and he needed to find someone to pawn this fucking creature off onto before he went insane.

Fogs kept trying to tell him some shit about this being her job, but Matt wasn’t an idiot. Paisley was a guide dog. And she wore a harness he refused to touch and she panted like it was her job to fill every room with her hot, nasty-ass kibble-breath. She was constantly at his side and would not leave him the hell alone and he didn’t _need_ a guide dog and no one was fucking listening to him anymore. Just like before.

Social Services always did this shit. Had always done this shit.

He demanded to see their written definition of high-risk and he wanted to bring a suit against them for discrimination, but it was to no avail.

“Mr. Murdock, we are trying to help you,” they all said.

“Then take the fucking dog,” he told them.

“Mr. Murdock, you’ve had a very difficult life,” they told him, “And there is no shame in using support when you need it.”

“I know. I have a fucking stick,” he told them. “So take the goddamn dog before I poison it.”

And fuck a duck, it turned out that the mutilation of and fantasy of mutilating animals was apparently a sign of psychopathy?

So now he had to go to another shrink to convince them that he didn’t actually want to kill the damn thing, he just wanted it out of his goddamn house and life, and while he was at it, everyone else could fuck right off too, please and thanks.

Paisley laid out all over him during this meeting and the psychiatrist didn’t even move a muscle. Her heartbeat was dead even and Matt could not for the life of him understand why no one ever did anything about this.

“Stop,” he barked at the dog. He tried to shove her away but she was persistent.

“Would you—just _stop_ ,” he growled. Paisley settled for licking his hand and shoving her face into his lap. She only stopped this business upon receiving pets. She was so damn desperate for pets, like, all the time. Matt was pretty damn sure that guide dogs were supposed to be obedient and at least somewhat restrained in this nonsense.

“Mr. Murdock,” The shrink said slowly, observing him waging war with the dog, “You are aware that Paisley is a psychiatric service dog, aren’t you?”

A what?

“A what?” he asked.

The gal’s heart flipped over in surprise.

Oh. He didn’t like that.

“A psychiatric service dog,” she repeated. “Did no one tell you she’s a psychiatric service dog?”

A weird way to say ‘guide dog’ but whatever.

“Yeah, sure. Psych, guide, whatever you want to call her—”

“She’s not a guide dog.”

The dog huffed in Matt’s lap and nibbled at his fingers when he stopped petting her.

Not a guide dog?

They hadn’t even given him a guide dog?

What the fuck kind of incompetent—

“Mr. Murdock you have significant childhood trauma, on top of what appears to me and your other clinician to be escalating self-harm behaviors. Social Services recommended the dog for those issues, Mr. Murdock. Not for your blindness.”

Wait. He wasn’t understanding.

“But I don’t need psych support?” he tried.

The silence that followed this was in turn followed by the rough application of pen to paper.

Ah, fuck.

This was not going well.

“I already have a support network,” he corrected, “I’ve got my friend group and my work and church. I have more support than I know what to do with, I don’t need a dog on top of all that.”

The pen continued.

Jesus.

“Why don’t we do this,” the therapist said evenly, her heart just as level, “It is clear to me that you aren’t actually planning on harming Miss Paisley over here. It seems to me that this is a period of adjustment. Have you ever had a pet before, Mr. Murdock?”

Honey, the closest thing he’d ever had to a pet was Wade Wilson. And he was pretty sure that that admission wasn’t going to get him out of this office any faster.

“No?”

“Yes, I see. It can be difficult getting used to sharing space and having another being in your life suddenly dependent on you. Especially if you’ve never done it before. Why don’t you give it two weeks? Two weeks to see if Paisley improves your mood or helps you in other parts of your life? I’ll recommend some additional information and maybe some specialized training for both of you, and if you don’t find her to be helpful after all that, then we’ll look into other possibilities. Is that fair?”

No, ma’am, it was not. Matt had already had Paisley for five days and he was at the end of his fucking rope.

Paisley licked his face and he couldn’t contain his noise of disgust.

He could have sworn the shrink was laughing at him.

 

 

Foggy would not stop baby-talking the goddamned dog. Karen was spoiling the damn dog with all kinds of shit tired-Matt was a-fucking-mazing at tripping over.

Peter was wholeheartedly in love with the dog. He and his little buddies called her two billion names which she had done nothing to earn. They showered her in praise and affection when she wasn’t wearing her harness, which, Matt learned, was red service vest.

He’d been wondering why no one had given him guide dog training. He’d tried it once as a kid, but, embarrassingly, had been so terrified of the dogs that his dad had had to intervene and take him aside to settle down for a while. He didn’t want to talk about it.

Naturally, Foggy and Karen laid on him until it came out.

“Matty, why didn’t you just say you’re scared of dogs?” Foggy asked him, having gone from delighted to concerned in a matter of seconds.

“I’m not scared of them,” he defended. Paisley got up to shove her muzzle into his hand. When ignored, she squirmed her head in under his elbow and made him jump.

Karen and Foggy’s silence was judgmental.

“I’m _not_ ,” he insisted. “They’re big and fucking hairy and messy and they smell bad.”

And Dad had had to pick him up into his arms at nine years old and bounce him a little like a toddler because he’d been inconsolable that one time.

“Did you get mauled?” Karen asked.

“What? No.”

“Bit?”

“No.”

“Uh, chased?”

“No.”

“Then what gives?” Karen pressed.

He shrugged hard.

“Matty, it’s okay to just be scared of them,” Foggy told him kindly.

“I’m not scared of them.”

That silence was so fucking judgmental, were they even trying?

“Okay, sure,” Fogs blew out with a sigh.

“I’m _not_.”

“Yeah, I heard you. Maybe it would help if you guys bonded. Maybe take her to a park? Let her be off-duty for a little bit? You never know, she might have the compatible personality to yours.”

Take her? Off lead?

What if she fucked off and didn’t come back? Social Services would definitely think he’d killed her. 100%, without a doubt.

Was he fast enough to catch a dog? Maybe. Maybe if she was old. He considered the beast demanding pets. He didn’t fucking understand what was wrong with Fogs’s or Karen’s pets that she always seemed to come back to him.

“Maybe, and bear with me, Matty,” Foggy said. Matt knew what he was going to say before he even said it and hissed at him. “Right, see, you’re not bearing with me.”

“I don’t _need_ —”

“Yeah, I get that. But maybe she’ll be less annoying to you if she’s serving a different function. You just hate her right now because she’s trying to make you reflect on the emotional disaster that is your head. You hate everyone who does that, but don’t you think she might help you, I dunno, chill out a bit with the other stuff? You told me before it’s kind of a relief to just use the cane sometimes, right?”

“No.”

“Matthew.”

“No.”

He would not bear this indignity.

“Matthew, I swear to god you told me that.”

“No.”

“Dude,” Karen interrupted, “Just fucking shut up and try it.”

Ugh.

 

Paisley was a very good girl, a very smart girl, according to literally everyone everywhere. But Paisley was not a guide dog and she, nor Matt, had sufficient guide dog training. So he tamped down the urge to vomit and called his fucking social worker and arranged a meeting with her and his new fucking clinician and pointed at the dog.

“If this is going to happen,” he said, “I want a guide dog. Not an emotional support one.”

Paisley leaned her head on his knee. The other two people in the room where puzzled, given their jumping heart beats and head scratching.

“Well, alright?” the social worker said.

 

 

Peter legitimately cried upon learning that Paisley was going away to be replaced with a different dog and he refused to speak to Matt for days. Which was what the fuck ever. It wasn’t the kid’s life. He wasn’t the one who had to deal with the fucking dog day in and day out.

“Red, go say sorry,” Wade told him after the second week of Peter calling out of their meet up.

“It’s not my fault,” Matt snapped back. “I didn’t even want her to begin with.”

Wade was unmoved. But also a cat-dad now, no matter how much he denied it. And Matt was so fucking jealous. Why couldn’t he have a guide cat? He’d allow for a guide cat. He wouldn’t even have to train it, he’d be totally cool with just carrying it around on his shoulders.

Actually.

Why couldn’t he have an emotional support cat??

“Dude, what’s with that face?”

He tried to find Wade.

“Can I borrow Bella?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” Wade snipped back, then realized what he was letting onto and backtracked. “I mean, yeah, whatever. Take her. Bake her. Do whatever you want. See if I care.”

So that was a no.

 

 

Tuesday was a good girl. A very good girl. A much better girl than Paisley, if simply by merit of not laying all over the place where Matt could trip on her. Tuesday did not drool all over Matt’s hands and didn’t shove her fucking nose where it didn’t belong.

Tuesday was smart. And Matt appreciated intelligence in a person, so he and Tuesday jived a lot better than him and Paisley.

“I’m gonna say it,” Foggy threatened.

“Don’t you fucking say a word,” Matt threatened back.

“Nah, I’m gonna say it.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“You _like_ her.”

“I don’t.”

“Matty, you _like_ her.”

“I do nothing of the sort.”

Tuesday huffed a sigh next to his knee and laid down, almost bored. She didn’t whine or bark or nuzzle. She left him be until he told her what to do.

Tuesday was really good at fetching things Matt didn’t know he needed fetched. She could bring him his cane, for example. Which was very handy when he lost it, having chucked it or dropped it somewhere in an alley or in a pile of shit on his floor. She could bring him a bottle of meds, like aspirin or antibiotics. She was especially good at finding curbs before Matt could and listened to him when he told her to go places. Most importantly, however, Tuesday was really, really good at ignoring all the shit that distracted Matt on the way down the street.

He’d tested it.

Yes, maybe a fucking ridiculous competition to hold, especially given that Tuesday was a guide dog, not a sniffer dog, but whatever. She was smart. She’d already memorized the way to the office _and_ had learned how to fetch the first aid kit. And he’d only had her for nine days.

He had faith in her.

So Matt wandered through the streets, pinpointing all the smells and sounds which might be dog-attractive, and which were certainly Matt-attractive. Then, he strategically dropped a cane at the very end of the busiest street and went back to stand over Tuesday in her harness in the kitchen.

“Alright,” he told her, “Let’s see what you got.”

He took her down the front steps and took off her harness and instructed her to fetch the cane, holding out one of his spares as a reference. She didn’t want to leave him, which was kind of endearing (not that he’d ever, not once in his life, admit that out loud), but on the third command she took the order and went huffing down the street, on the hunt for the cane. He trailed the dog. Why? Because. How else was he supposed to know how good she was?

The dog did not pause in her business, except to relocate Matt’s scent when she lost it, which was more than Matt could say for himself sometimes. He was prone to weaving a little, with and without the cane, not a lot, but especially when he was tired and someone was cooking something nice or was blasting shit out of their car speakers. It was somewhat unconscious but could be rectified by upping his alertness.

Tuesday, however, was good and alert on her own. She kept her nose down and huffed along, all the way to the end of the sidewalk, where she snuffled around the dumpster Matt had tossed the cane under. She picked it up in her gentle mouth and started a happy jog back towards the apartment door. Matt had to jog a bit to keep up with her on the parallel street until she froze halfway down the block.

He tried to sense around for what had distracted her but was too far away to figure out if it had been a smell or a sound or something in her peripheral vision.

Then the clicking of paws and panting started coming his way, and he realized it was him. He’d distracted her. She must have caught sight or smell of him scampering between the alleys.

She came right up to him and nudged the cane into his hand.

He didn’t know what to say.

“Good dog?” he tried, patting her head a little. She leaned into the pat and then took up her position by his leg, even though she wasn’t wearing the harness.

“Good girl,” he said more emphatically. They returned to the building.

 

 

“Matty, I know you’re really into this whole, I-hate-her business, but man, you’re cooing,” Foggy noted from the couch.

Matt released Tuesday’s face immediately and sat up straight.

He was not cooing.

He didn’t not coo.

Not at babies. Not at dogs. Not at anything.

No cooing.

Tuesday gave a tiny whine at the sudden loss of affection and then settled back down at his feet.

She was _such_ a good girl. So little whining. So little protest.

Okay, maybe just one more pet. She was a good girl, she’d been a good girl all day. She deserved another pet.

“Matty.”

“I’m not even doing anything,” he griped, ruffling Tuesday’s ears so that she shook her head and panted a couple times before settling back down.

Foggy didn’t say anything, but Matt could sense him watching.

 

 

Peter didn’t know what to make of Tuesday because she was so different from her predecessor. She didn’t acknowledge him or his friends the first time they met her.

“Is she sick?” Peter asked. Matt raised an eyebrow.

“No. She’s just chill,” he said.

Peter did not understand why this was a merit in a dog.

“She seems sad,” he said.

Matt hummed and stood up, and up came Tuesday next to him.

“Fogs, we’re going to the park,” he called over his shoulder; the kids followed him and Tuesday out the door.

 

 

Tuesday was happy to be let out of her harness and temporarily off duty. She shook her shaggy fur and bounced off for a quick trot around the grass.

“Does she fetch?” Ned asked.

Matt considered.

“Kind of?” he offered. He hadn’t gotten her a ball or anything. She as an ace at fetching gauze, though. She licked at his wounds sometimes too, which was nasty but also kind of sweet. 

“Does she know the Devil?” Peter asked, flopping down onto the bench next to Matt.

“I don’t fucking know, kid. Why’s it matter?”

“Are you gonna keep her?” MJ tossed in.

Go away. Don’t ask hard questions.

“We’re still in our trial period, don’t be putting ideas into her head.”

Tuesday came back to nudge at Matt’s hand for pets. Peter took over to give her far too many and far too vigorous pets, which got her all good and riled up. She even barked once, then sneezed on the kid to his vociferous disgust and wagged her tail merrily at his misery.

Fuck, he wanted to keep her.

Fuck. This was exactly why Dad never let him have any pets.

 

 

“Spidey says he liked your old dog better,” Wade noted in the direction of Tuesday’s placid form in Matt’s kitchen.

“’Course he did, he does emotion,” Matt told him.

Wade peered at the dog in silence for a few beats.

“Do you feel more stable, Red?” he asked. “Or are we still at ultimate martyr levels?”

He returned to sinking the needle into Matt’s skin while he thought about it.

Tuesday sighed under the table and swept her tail out of the way of Matt’s feet. It brushed against his ankles as it went.

 

 

The therapist was fucking smug and he didn’t like it, not one bit.

“You seem to be in a good mood today, Mr. Murdock,” she noted.

He didn’t answer because he didn’t need that kind of language in his life.

“How are we finding Miss Tuesday?”

He said nothing. Tuesday said nothing either.

“I see,” said the therapist, making a note in her book. “You know, it’s okay to say that she makes you more comfortable.”

He didn’t need Tuesday to be comfortable. He’d been comfortable enough on his own. It was just kind of nice to not wander around alone all the time. That was all.

“I take it we’ll be finishing out the month with her?”

What if he got too attached?

Was he already too attached?

He should say no, he should give her up. He didn’t need her, he wanted her. They were different things.

“Yeah,” he said.

 

 

Sister Maggie did not like Tuesday, but then, Sister Maggie did not like dogs, period.

It was absurd but he had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from telling her, ‘no, but Tuesday’s different. She’s a _good_ dog.’

Tuesday didn’t jump on anyone or give un-asked-for kisses or anything dumb like that. Tuesday already knew the way to the office and gave Matt a few extra moments of peace in the morning, before he had to get ahold of himself and start locking things down and filtering them to get through the day. Tuesday didn’t let him walk over curbs when he wasn’t paying attention. Tuesday wasn’t scared of the Devil,  but she didn’t like him getting into Matt’s space without being able to sniff his fingers to make sure it was really just him coming home.

She was a really good girl.

She was a really big help.

When he woke up at night, breathing hard, she was laying on the ground by the bed and the sound of another heartbeat brought him back to reality faster. That feeling of emptiness, followed by the urge to swallow down the breaths and put the falling, sinking feeling behind him weren’t gone, but they felt different.

When she wasn’t working, Tuesday followed him around the apartment and wagged her big, plume-like tail slowly when he talked to her, as if she was actually listening.

She didn’t mind him meditating for long periods of time and didn’t get in his face while he was doing it.

She didn’t ask him if he was really blind.

She didn’t bother him about why it was that he could find things at home, but not find the same things or do the same things outside.

“Are you going to keep her?” Sister Maggie asked as Tuesday received permission to be get lots of pets from all the orphanage kids.

Matt chewed his lips.

“I dunno.”

Sister Maggie hummed.

“Does she make you happy?”

“I don’t need her,” Matt said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

 

 

Peter was trying to make friends with Tuesday, but it wasn’t going well for him. Matt suspected it was because Peter wanted to play like she was a puppy, when Tuesday was basically an old maid. She wasn’t terribly interested in getting all worked up and jumping all over him and, from Foggy’s descriptions, preferred to observe Pete’s efforts at throwing tennis balls and waving toys in her face with faint disinterest.

“Matty, you are allowed to like her,” Foggy told him as they took in Peter’s attempts to play fetch. Tuesday fucking duped Peter by showing interest in the ball, barking just an eensy bit. Foggy narrated as she watched Pete chuck it, overhand into the middle of the green, then barked softly after it and turned a few circles before laying back down, plume a-wagging.

Peter explained to the dog for the third time how fetch works. She stopped wagging to listen to him attentively but made no move whatsoever to act on his excited instruction to go get the ball. She would not be moved. Peter huffed at her and she watched him stomp off to go fetch the ball with a cocked ear. Fogs said the cocked ear was very important.

Matt didn’t tell Pete that Tuesday’s idea of fun was mouthing all the tennis balls in the pet store and then guarding the one she picked like it was an egg. He didn’t feel like trying to make eye contact with Fogs either.

Fogs sighed and leaned back and wrapped an arm around Matt’s shoulder.

“Buddy, why do you always make things so hard on yourself?” he asked.

“I don’t need her,” Matt reminded him, or maybe himself.

“Pal, you have been so much more chill over the last couple weeks, I don’t think you even realize it.”

No, he did. But that wasn’t the point.

“I don’t need her,” he maintained.

 

 

Tuesday found her best friend and her best friend was Max, to Frank’s absolute horror. Matt didn’t really mind, it was entertaining to track Frank’s fidgeting and frantically whispered _whys_.

Max was much more puppyish than Tuesday; he liked to get all riled up and come over and lean on her and shove her until she’d stand up and wag her plume a bit. And then Max would double his dumbass pitty efforts and get to wriggling and barking and nudging and making weird half-growls half-whines, and Frank would put his head in his hands and ask the universe why his dog was such a fucking dweeb.

Karen told Matt that he no longer had any choice in the matter. It was an act of animal cruelty to separate best friends.

It was, well.

It was an excuse to say yes. To say okay. To say she’ll stay.

 

 

He went to Elektra because he needed advice that only she could give and she sat with him quietly while they listened to the rain. Tuesday stayed quiet and close, settled down at Matt’s feet as he and Elektra sat on opposite ends of the couch in her apartment. Legs outstretched, entwined comfortably in each other.

It wasn’t sexy anymore so much as it was a meaningful connection. They didn’t have to talk anymore, it seemed.

“Sensei would have said no,” Elektra said into the hush. Matt dropped his face to his knees.

“I know.”

“You don’t need her. You just want her.”

“I know.”

“Why do you want her?”

A hard question to answer.

“I think she brings me comfort.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The hush and then the rain.

“We don’t need comfort,” Elektra said gently. Tuesday shifted position and sighed into her paws.

Matt sighed with her. He sniffed.

“Matthew,” Elektra hummed.

He sniffed again, couldn’t help it. She was right.

“You’re not listening,” she said. “Hey.” She nudged him, her knee against his. He tipped his face heavenward and blinked hard to keep the tears from falling. “Hey, listen to me,” she said.

“I’m listening,” he told her, trying to clear his throat. She pressed their knees together.

“Sensei isn’t here anymore,” she said, and then stopped for a long moment. “I think that means we’re allowed to choose who we get to be. Get to choose what we need.”

“It’s weakness,” he replied. He sniffed again. The dog twitched up in his direction.

“Maybe it’s happiness,” Elektra murmured.

He hiccupped. Tuesday rustled up to her feet and laid her head against the knee closest to her.

“I want to keep her,” he confided. “She makes things easier.”

Elektra leaned forward and cupped her hand over the knee Tuesday wasn’t leaning on. Her hand was warm.

“Then keep her,” she said. Matt heard her swallow. She didn’t like to see him cry. The same way his heart throbbed in pain when she did.

“Sorry,” he hiccupped. She shifted and pressed more of their legs together.

“If something happens, I’ll take her,” she decided. “And if something happens to me, we’ll get Castle to.”

Because, all joking aside, Frank would. He definitely would.

“Thank you,” he sobbed.

 

 

Foggy was concerned and Tuesday was concerned and restless. Matt always seemed to go to Foggy after being with Elektra. As if touching them both back to back would make things more solid.

“Buddy, what’s wrong?” Foggy asked, “You look like you’ve been crying, huh? What’s up?”

He could comfortably break down in Foggy’s arms, no need to hold back, to keep the quiet like with Elektra.

“I wanna keep the dog,” he got out between breaths.

Foggy pulled away a little in surprise. He didn’t understand why this was important. He didn’t understand why it was so hard. But he was Foggy, so he wrapped his arms around Matt’s back and rocked them both a bit.

“Then keep the dog, honey,” he said. Matt laughed into his neck; it was hot and damp with his own upset. Foggy ran his hands in long, firm circles over his back.

It was allowed to be as simple as that.

 

 

Matt’s landlord just about bent over backwards trying to tell him he wasn’t allowed to have a dog in his apartment and Matt could have sworn that even Tuesday stopped her grooming to stare blankly at the guy.

“She’s a service dog?” Matt tried, because cutting through this stupidity was like wading through shit when there was a perfectly good bridge built over it.

“No pets,” the guy reminded him, “It says so in the tenancy agreement.”

“She’s. A. Service. Dog,” Matt explained, extra slow for the folks in the back.

“Mr. Murdock—”

“Dude, I’m fucking blind, I don’t know what you want here. You can file a suit if that’s really how you want to go about this, but like, it ain’t gonna work out well for you. I’m allowed to have a service dog, that’s kind of how this works.”

“No pets.”

“Alright, man, if that’s the hill you wanna die on, I’m not gonna stop you from trying.”

 

 

Wade was charmed right out of his mind over this.

“Does he even know who you are?” he pressed. Matt shrugged. A lot of people in the Kitchen were familiar with Nelson & Murdock and just Murdock & Murdock, but he didn’t exactly go out of his way to scream his name from the mountain tops.

“He’s gonna get his ass kicked. You got a back-up place to live for when he inevitably evicts you?” Wade asked.

Matt shrugged again.

“He’s got no grounds to evict me, but he can try that too. I mean, if he’s that desperate for me to use his own money to pay my rent, I’m not gonna stop him.”

 

 

Foggy bought Tues a wooden box to keep her three prized tennis balls in and she decided that he was allowed to stay and took to leaning on his legs when she was off-duty. Foggy decided that they were distant blond cousins and that the human Tues had been reincarnated from must have been the gentlest 18th century Irish woman in all the land.

He took to asking her fucking stupid questions like “is the heather soft on the moors today, Tues?” and “how’re the sheep, my dear?” which was adorable, and which Matt wasn’t going to deal with because it made him all soft inside.

Karen took the opposite approach and addressed Tuesday only as “my bitch” and “my ho.”

Peter and MJ were mortified upon witnessing this in action. Ned thought it was hilarious because Karen had also taught the dog how to high-five upon receiving these greetings.

 

 

He said nothing to the social worker or the therapist staring at him expectantly. He had nothing to say to them. Well. He should probably say thanks, but he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect. If it weren’t for them, he wouldn’t be currently stuck terrorizing his landlord.

“I take it that that’s a yes?” the therapist finally asked.

Tuesday sighed next to his feet.

Would it be overkill if he said he’d die for her and he’d murder anyone who so much as blinked at her with any malice?

“Yes,” he said simply.

“And have you noted any improvement in your, uh, quality of—”

“She’s far better than that horrible thing you all first saddled me with.”

The two women turned towards each other to share a silent conversation.

“Alright, well. That’s great then,” the social worker said. “So we can move forward with all the adoption paperwork?”

“Yes.”

 


End file.
